With Dr. Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice...and the Speaker at the 2008 Jacksonville Branch NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner. Dr. Ogletree taught both Michelle Obama and President Obama at Harvard Law School.
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According to the dictionary definition, a traitor is one who betrays a person, a principle, or especially their country. It is of no consequence why someone, or a group, chooses to work in opposition to their nation, or fellow citizens’ well-being, because if their intent and result of their actions is to deliberately damage or cause harm to their country or fellow citizens, they are by definition traitors. It is likely that throughout America’s short history, except for the traitorous Confederacy, no group of individuals has exhibited the characteristic betrayal of a traitor more than conservatives in general, and Republicans in particular. What makes their actions all the more despicable is that their traitorous actions are founded on racial animus for one man; and allegiance to foreigners and one tiny segment of the population.

These Republicans’ malicious, calculated, and concerted acts of betrayal of their country and its people started the evening of Barack Obama’s first inauguration and, despite his overwhelming re-election victory in 2012, they have persisted unabated and in fact continue to grow. Of course the latest blatant example of betrayal is Speaker of the House John Boehner violating a 216 year-old federal law by “joining with the leader of a foreign nation against his own president.” That was the assessment in a scathing article published in the conservative magazine Forbes that rightly asserted that Boehner “seeking to damage any American President by helping a foreign leader can never be considered something that is best for the nation.” That comment, in a nutshell, elucidates exactly why Republicans are traitors to America; they have no regard whatsoever for “what is best for the nation” or its people. Coupled with their blatant disregard for the Constitution they swore to uphold, their opposition to what is best for the nation has become the defining characteristic of the 21st Century conservative movement and it is why they are traitors.

The Republican drive to subvert this nation and its people’s well-being began when they met and secretly plotted to undermine economic recovery after they just spent 8 long years creating the Great Recession for the benefit of the rich; including starting two wars of religious aggression. At no time in history has a group of political leaders purposely conspired to destroy the nation’s economic well-being as Republicans did on Inauguration night in January 2009. They ramped up their war on the economy in 2011 when they nearly destroyed the full faith and credit of the United States that the Constitution states “shall not be questioned,” much less deliberately decimated. The constitutional betrayal garnered America’s first credit downgrade in history and a ploy they came precariously close to repeating in 2013 when they shut down the government by betraying their Constitutional mandate to legislate for the “people’s general welfare;” all over their opposition to Americans having access to affordable healthcare. It was a betrayal of their fellow citizens, and their oath to uphold the Constitution that tasks them to pass legislation, not shut down the government or threaten a credit default. Over the past six years, Republicans have shown that their allegiance to the Constitution is as non-existent as their allegiance to this country or their fellow citizens.

Republicans have compiled a despicable record of betraying Americans by conspiring and plotting to rob them of their wealth and transferring it, by way of tax cuts, to multi-national corporations with American-sounding names; all while assisting them to avoid taxes by protecting their ill-gotten gains in foreign banks. In fact, the Republican drive to enrich another foreign entity, TransCanada, at the expense of America’s environment, the people’s health, and economy is, as Forbes noted, “something that can never be considered in the best interest for the nation;” as if any American traitor ever considered what was in the best interest of the nation. Republicans also betrayed the Constitution by conspiring with foreigners (Canadians) to undermine the Executive Branch and upset the balance of power to benefit a foreign corporation, other foreign nations’ energy needs, and two un-American John Birch devotees.

Maybe more than anything, Republicans have betrayed America by attempting to destroy the principles in the Constitution they apparently despise as much as the nation and its people. There is no greater example than a massive concerted effort to obstruct and eliminate Americans’ right to vote in states Republicans control with valuable assistance from the conservative Supreme Court; a conservative cabal that has as little regard for, or allegiance to, the Constitution or America as Republicans in Congress and the states. In fact, in what is a telling commentary about Republican’s betrayal of the Constitution, a little over a week ago two Democrats in Congress felt the pressing need to propose a Constitutional amendment to “recognize voting as a fundamental American right.” Americans already “had” constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental voting rights, including two long-established amendments extending the right to vote to women and people of color and not just white Christian males. But those Constitutional rights are vanishing due to Republican traitors to the Constitution and America’s representative democracy.

A list detailing the myriad ways Republicans betray the Constitution is extensive beginning with supporting religious fanatics successful efforts to control women, to supporting treasonous armed anti-government militias confronting and threatening federal agents, to giving corporations supremacy over citizens, to legislating discriminatory policies denying other Americans’ their constitutionally-guaranteed equal rights. Two years ago, and many time since, Republicans called for armed rebellion against the United States government if Americans re-elected Barack Obama as their President; something that anyone would regard as traitorous including calling for for a second revolution, threatening “Second Amendment remedies” against the government, and all manner of Republican-led state legislation ininuating armed threats against federal officials enforcing federal laws.

Their traitorous acts to destroy the economy and conspire with foreigners to undermine the Separation of Powers and office of the President are also betrayals of the Constitution they swore to uphold. The Republicans’ six year crusade to destroy the nation’s economy is not only traitorous; it is unprecedented in American history and still ongoing. One wonders, really, if there is anything about America, its Constitution, or its people Republicans will not betray to advance the interests of the rich, foreign nations, and foreign corporations.

The Constitution is very concise and clear as to the job Republicans in Congress are expected to perform and it is primarily “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” It is not to betray America by working with foreign leaders to undermine the Executive branch, not to assist foreign nations and corporations in their pursuit of profit, and not to dismantle the Constitution for theocrats and corporations. Republicans are turncoats with no interest whatsoever in what is “best for the nation” or its people. They have done nothing whatsoever over the past six years that was not an act of treachery against the American people, the Constitution, or the nation they show nothing but contempt for and it is because the people elected an African American man as their President and in doing so exposed Republicans as traitors and enemies of state.

This is the charred body of Jesse Washington and whites from Waco — not ISIS — burned him alive

Charred corpse of Jesse Washington among the ashes (NAACP)

This is an article by Bill Moyers.

They burned him alive in an iron cage, and as he screamed and writhed in the agony of hell they made a sport of his death.

After listening to one newscast after another rightly condemn the barbaric killing of that Jordanian air force pilot at the bloody hands of ISIS, I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept roaming the past trying to retrieve a vaguely remembered photograph that I had seen long ago in the archives of a college library in Texas.

Suddenly, around two in the morning, the image materialized in my head. I made my way down the hall to my computer and typed in: “Waco, Texas. Lynching.”

Sure enough, there it was: the charred corpse of a young black man, tied to a blistered tree in the heart of the Texas Bible Belt. Next to the burned body, young white men can be seen smiling and grinning, seemingly jubilant at their front-row seats in a carnival of death. One of them sent a picture postcard home: “This is the barbeque we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe.”

The victim’s name was Jesse Washington. The year was 1916. America would soon go to war in Europe “to make the world safe for democracy.” My father was twelve, my mother eight. I was born 18 years later, at a time, I would come to learn, when local white folks still talked about Washington’s execution as if it were only yesterday. This was not medieval Europe. Not the Inquisition. Not a heretic burned at the stake by some ecclesiastical authority in the Old World. This was Texas, and the white people in that photograph were farmers, laborers, shopkeepers, some of them respectable congregants from local churches in and around the growing town of Waco.

Here is the photograph. Take a good look at Jesse Washington’s stiffened body tied to the tree. He had been sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. No witnesses saw the crime; he allegedly confessed but the truth of the allegations would never be tested. The grand jury took just four minutes to return a guilty verdict, but there was no appeal, no review, no prison time. Instead, a courtroom mob dragged him outside, pinned him to the ground, and cut off his testicles. A bonfire was quickly built and lit. For two hours, Jesse Washington — alive — was raised and lowered over the flames. Again and again and again. City officials and police stood by, approvingly. According to some estimates, the crowd grew to as many as 15,000. There were taunts, cheers and laughter. Reporters described hearing “shouts of delight.”

When the flames died away, Washington’s body was torn apart and the pieces were sold as souvenirs. The party was over.

Many years later, as a young man, I visited Waco’s Baylor University, often referred to as the Texas Baptist Vatican. I had been offered a teaching position there. I sat for a while in the school’s Armstrong Browning Library, one of the most beautiful in America, containing not only the works of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the acclaimed Victorian poets, but also stained glass windows, marble columns, and elegant ceilings that bring to mind the gorgeous interior of Michelangelo’s Laurentian library in Florence.

Sitting there, I found it hard to reconcile the beauty and quiet of that sanctuary with the photograph that I had been shown earlier by a man named Harry Provence, publisher of the local newspaper. Seeing it, I realized that as young Jesse Washington was being tortured, students his own age, some of them studying for the ministry, were just finishing their spring semester. In 1905, when another black man had been lynched in Waco, Baylor’s president became a leader of the anti-lynching movement. But ugly memories still divided the town.

Jesse Washington was just one black man to die horribly at the hands of white death squads. Between 1882 and 1968 — 1968! — there were 4,743 recorded lynchings in the US. About a quarter of them were white people, many of whom had been killed for sympathizing with black folks. My father, who was born in 1904 near Paris, Texas, kept in a drawer that newspaper photograph from back when he was a boy of thousands of people gathered as if at a picnic to feast on the torture and hanging of a black man in the center of town. On a journey tracing our roots many years later, my father choked and grew silent as we stood near the spot where it had happened.

Yes, it was hard to get back to sleep the night we heard the news of the Jordanian pilot’s horrendous end. ISIS be damned! I thought. But with the next breath I could only think that our own barbarians did not have to wait at any gate. They were insiders. Home grown. Godly. Our neighbors, friends, and kin. People like us.

My Comments…Show your indignant feelings at the inhumane violence which happens on Foreign Shores all you want America, just remember and understand YOU PIONEERED a lot of that violence on these American Shores. Except then, it was Racist Inhumane Violence.

AND WHITE ANGLO SAXON PROTESTANTS ARE OUTRAGED ..outraged I tell you that this President would dare invoke slavery when talking about This Christian United States of America.
This same country whose founding documents say "We, The People…" and "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" but should have said "Only For White Americans".
This same country whose founding fathers owned slaves while talking about freedom, in the name of Christianity.
This same country that kidnapped a race of people from their Homeland and enslaved them for their materialistic, financial, and dare I say sexual pleasures, in the name of Christianity.
This same country that for almost 300 years kept those human beings in chains and bondage, in the name of Christianity.
This same country that NEVER apologized for Slavery and NEVER passed an Anti-Lynching Bill in Congress, in the name of Christianity.
This same country where a bunch of cowards called the Ku Klux Klan use the Christian Cross to justify unabated wanton racist violent attacks against Blacks, in the name of Christianity.
This same country which has its most segregated hour on Sundays between the hours of 11:00 am and 12:00 am, in the name of Christianity.
This same country that continues to exploit Blacks under the home developed American Institution of Racism, in the name of Christianity.
This same country that does not see character first, but skin color and only skin color first, in the name of Christianity.
Yes this same racist country which should be renamed These As Yet United States of America, in the name of Christianity.
That is the Christian America President Obama is talking about.

I had a “lend me your ear” call over the weekend from a Black friend who does not live in Jacksonville. He is in network news or he was until last week. He resigned from sheer frustration. All of his frustration apparently boiled to the surface during the many “Black Lives Matter” and other protests throughout the country. He basically said to me Black people cannot “get their perspective included” when the network news staff has its meetings, and when network news segments are presented on the air. He is not a passive person and does speak up for a Black point of view. He went on to say the editorial staff which consists of the news program producer, director, researchers, and him (also a producer) are mostly White and have NO perspective on Blacks in the news. And he added that is what he brings to the table along with his journalistic skills. He added it is the “suits” that run network news and a Black point of view is not something of which they are interested. I asked him jokingly was he eavesdropping on some of my conversation with friends on Facebook. He is not on Facebook.

He covered the Michael Brown protests and other demonstrations but when he attempted to explain the perspective of the protestors, he was told he does not understand the “big picture” and he “cannot be too Black in the news.” When a person is frustrated you can hear it in their voice and when that person is a friend you try and help him with the frustration as best you can. It frustrates you too when there is nothing you can do but listen, although sometimes listening, as corny as it sounds, can help. He is a journalism graduate from a prestigious school and has a few hours left on his Masters Degree.

He also bemoaned the fact some of the other Blacks in the news operation “simply go along to get along. They are either too afraid they might lose their job if they say anything, they do not understand their Blackness, or they agree “I might be too Black.” He also said it is not just isolated to his network. He did have praise for the operations of some network news personality programs like Al Sharpton or Melissa Harris-Perry or Rachel Maddow. He is not on MSNBC. He is now doing the usual. He is sending his resume’ (resume working) to various news programs and he is definitely trying to get on MSNBC and Al Jazeera, who he says has one of the best and fairest news operations in the industry.

Obviously he was frustrated, yet there is much truth in what he said especially when you watch the news coverage…or lack thereof…of news stories about Blacks and the racist comments about the President which should concern all Americans. He did not say it but I will. There is inbred Racism is network news designed to appeal to White viewers. We all know it, but very few will say it.

I am posting this FYI. Think about this when you watch network news and it’s professionally challenged ugly red-haired stepchild, local news, and then consider the sources.

Mayor Bill De Blasio made himself the enemy because he spoke about racial profiling. Mayor De Blasio made an enemy of the NYPD, because he publicly spoke about the police profiling black males. The black community has spoken about this issue for decades.

The narrative of local police forces harassing, arresting and murdering black citizens unjustly has been reported through thousands of anecdotes, countless personal experiences and various musical genres for decades. The idea that this is finally recognized publicly by news channels in 2015, is absolutely pathetic for a country that prides iself on freedom and equality.

This issue was finally presented to all of white America by a white man: Bill De Blasio, Mayor of New York City. Mayor De Blasio put a white human face to an issue that many whites have either ignored or truly did not know about. Mayor De Blasio’s white face FINALLY made this an issue that some members of white America would finally recognized. Black America has told white America for centuries that racism is in fact real and not a figment of a collective imagination, or an excuse for laziness or general failure. It is often easy and usually TOO easy for white America to dismiss black America for pointing out racism. Recently some members of white America have been calling white democrats and black America “The Real racists”. White on black racism is real and ALL white people know this. Many white people on the right(usually the GOP and Tea Party members), always attempt to deflect from their actual racism and the racism that lingers within the white race.

When Mayor De Blasio spoke of his concerns of the police harming his biracial son, it made him a Race Traitor.

Mayor De Blasio became the enemy of the right(usually white people and fools like Ben Carson), because as a prominent white man, he gave legitimacy to racism. Racism is supposed to be the excuse of lazy niggers who don’t want to work. Racism is supposed to be an excuse when a black person just isn’t good enough.

Mayor De Blasio angered many card carrying members of white America when he legitimized racism with the words that came out of his white face. HE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!! As a good white man, he’s supposed to dismiss racism by saying nothing or laughing nervously like a moron. HE DIDN’T do that, he spoke the truth. The truth he learned from his life and his experiences. As a white person, his words on racism are given validity. He is given the benefit of the doubt of because of his skin. When he exposed the fact white people CAN in fact be racist, many on the NYPD knew that his words would be taken seriously. Instantly all of the black people that have claimed maltreatment at the hands of the NYPD were given validity. That’s why they turned their backs on him. (BLACKMANUSA.WORDPRESS.COM)

While we are enjoying Christmas with our families and appreciating another God-Given Breath of Life, remember one of the real unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. On Christmas Day 1951, Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette retired to bed in their white frame house tucked inside a small orange grove in Mims, Florida. Ten minutes later, a bomb shattered their house, their lives and any notions that the south's post-war transition to racial equality would be a smooth one. Harry Moore died on the way to the hospital; his wife died nine days later. Despite an extensive FBI investigation, and two later investigations, the murders have never been solved.

Because Moore was killed in 1951, his name and his wife's name are not mentioned as deaths in the Modern Civil Rights Movement which some arguably say began with the death of Emmett Till in 1955. I say Harriette and Harry T. Moore's life's work, and his death were very much a part of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Harry was the first NAACP official killed in the civil rights struggle, and he and Harriette are the only husband and wife to give their lives to the movement. He literally put his life on the line every day as his Bio attests. He is one of my Real Civil Rights Champions.

It was my honor to be the Keynote Speaker last year (2013) when Harry T. Moore and His Wife Harriette were inducted in the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame.

Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore documentary explores the life and times of this courageous leader, a distinguished school teacher whose passionate crusade for equal rights could not be discouraged by either the white power structure or the more cautious factions of his own movement. It restores Moore to his rightful place in the Civil Rights Movement.

The degree of Racism that infects us all is evident in the killing of the two police officers in Brooklyn. Almost immediately, police union spokesmen, Right Wing Racist Hypocrites, AND Racists of all conveniences started pointing fingers at the demonstrations and protests and protests leaders and specifically Blacks as if Blacks are responsible for the deaths of the policemen and American Institution of Racism. Yet these same professional spokesmen never uttered a kind Christian word for the families of the unarmed victims killed by policemen. Let me remind you the American Institution of Racism was developed for, and is supported by, White America.

I do not apologize for protests and Demonstrations which dealt with the epidemic of brutal police killings, and do not try and tell me when a police kills an unarmed Black person that is simply “the price of doing business” if you are a law enforcement officer. The problem is those who protest racism and in this instance the unconscionable killings of many Blacks by police and other law enforcement officers are made to feel as if their protesting is responsible for police being killed. That is always the strategy of the American Institution of Racism. Whatever the circumstances, it was “The Blacks” fault for stirring up the “Niggers”. How many times have I heard “Racial Agitators”? This is not agitating. This is Black America protesting a problem America has allowed to simmer for decades. White policemen coming into the Black community as the disrespectful slavery plantation owners reincarnated to keep “The Blacks” under control is not new. The mantra is always “do not do as I do, just do as I say do.” There are police who do their jobs as professionals and there are policemen who do their jobs as racists. Yet when White policemen kill as we have see over this last year, Whites never view those killings as racist crimes against Blacks. Blacks killed by White policemen irrespective of circumstances are almost always “justified”. Do you really expect the Black Community to believe there are no bad policemen and there are no racist policemen? Of course, we live in a country which never apologized for slavery and never apologized for kidnapping millions of Africans from their native continent; so I would not expect America to ever see where it is wrong.

Well America you are wrong. As a Black man, I am not going on a guilt trip because two policemen were killed any more than you White America go on a guilt trip when Blacks are killed by policemen no matter the circumstances or lack of credibility and substance. I am a Christian and I abhor all killing. When you allow murderers to walk free or are never charged because a prosecutor “cooked the prosecutorial books” I never hear your voice. You call it justifiable homicide (what a helluva oxymoron), Blacks call it Murder. WE have seen it much too often. So we are at a crossroads. Unless America first deals with its rampant racism, and then begin to afford respect to Black America, then Humpty Dumpty will really have a Great Fall. Parading a few “handkerchief head” Niggers — Black Uncle Bens and Uncle Clarences and Aunt Staceys —asking us to apologize Cannot Put Humpty Dumpty Together Again. Blaming Blacks for America’s problems is not going to solve the problem. Funny but when you had us in chains as slaves, making money for you, we were not a problem.

Talking Race and Racism is very intimidating. Yet American Racism is as American as Apple Pie. America does not understand respect when it comes to Black America. That is a by-product of American Racism. You will not respect a Black President. You will not respect a Black First Lady. You will not respect a Black Attorney General. You treat them as irreverently as you treat the Native American Indians whose land you stole. The fact President Obama is Black exacerbates your already pathetic core racist attitudes. Like it or not America, the protests and the demonstrations will continue. You can blame Blacks all you want, but sooner or later you had better start looking in the mirror to assess the Real Blame. Only then can YOU start solving YOUR Problem.

The Scale of Injustice tells us two things …
1) A Racist with a Badge and a gun is still a Racist, but with Life and Death Control over you; and
2) Justice is Not Blind. Justice Is Most Definitely A Racist.

CNN contributor Soledad O’Brien tried to explain to CBS host Bob Schieffer on Sunday that the protests over law enforcement “criminalizing” black communities were about much more than the recent deaths of black men in Missouri and New York.

“Anybody who thinks that what is happening right now [with the protests across the country] is only about Eric Garner, is only about Michael Brown is really missing what is happening in black America,” she pointed out. “African-Americans feel that they are treated differently in the criminal justice system, they are treated differently under the law.”

“There is this aggressive targeting of black people,” O’Brien added. “That doesn’t happen in white communities, and it’s that anger over so many years that is really percolating up now.”

“Do you think that’s a valid feeling, that they are being treated differently?” Schieffer asked. O’Brien encouraged the CBS host to “look at the statistics.”

In her recent CNN documentary Black in America: Black and Blue, she found that 90 percent of the 5 million stop-and-frisk stops in New York City never resulted in arrests. “Those people had done nothing,” she explained. “So 90 percent of the blacks and Latinos that were stopped in stop-and-frisks in New York City didn’t do anything. Imagine what that does psychically to a culture if you ‘fit the description,’ which means you’re black, male, 19 to 25.”

Schieffer, however, wondered if the stop-and-frisks were justified because blacks lived in “high-crime areas.” “I think the challenge is that it’s not being applied proportionally,” O’Brien declared. “For example, if you are arresting and stopping people where many of them haven’t done anything, you create a culture in that community — even a high-crime community — where people feel like they are being criminalized, even those — as we saw in our documentary — who haven’t done anything.”

The CNN contributor recalled that one man said that he had been stopped more than 100 times.

“At some point, I think it becomes very damaging to these individuals, but also to a community that understands this is unfair,” she continued. “White people would say to me, ‘Well, I tell my children they should be respectful of police.’ And black people would say, ‘I teach my son how to survive an interaction with the police,’ regardless of socio-economic status.”

“That is problematic, and that, I think, is at the core of all these marches and anger that we’ve seen.”

My Comments….Bob Schieffer is an uninformed TYPICAL talk show host who has outlived his usefulness if he was ever useful in the news arena. I cannot give this heretofore perceived knowledgeable host of a heretofore perceived intelligent news talk show a pass for stupidity and laziness.The questions and comments he made in this article are just some of the reasons why some of us should simply turn off network news…local news is a given…and seek news sources from some of the excellent web sites on the internet.

Yep I AM saying throw out the news baby with the stinking news bath water. You might learn more about what is REALLY GOING ON. When you can only list one or two news talk shows as worthy of watching, there is a Real problem. But then we knew that.

Notwithstanding Southern Democrats who wimpishly ran both hot and cold on Progressive issues and supporting President Obama as the standard bearer of Democrats, the loss of Mary Landrieu (link article) camouflages other reasons why there will be no Democratic senators left from the Deep South when the new Congress is sworn in early next year. The press will never discuss it and of course NO TV talk show will adequately engage in an honest conversation, so I am offering my reasons why Republicants have taken over the Political South.

Your Choices are: 1)The Brown Decision. 2)The Civil Rights Bill of 1964. 3)The Voting Rights Act of 1965. 4)The Voting Rights Act of 1968. 5) Southerners hate Democrats since the Democrat Party is the Party of President Lyndon Baines Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Acts. 6)Still Angry and Refusing to admit defeat of the so-called Civil War and Terrorist Southerners want a do-over.(Please note…The South was really an Enemy Government since they seceded from the United States of America) 7) They are throwing Red Meat Signals to the Klan to crank-up again. 8) Racist Republicant Right Wing Evangelical Tea Party Party totally represents the views of White Southerners. 9) The South does not like a Black President. 10) Southerners hate Democrats since the Democrat Party is the Party of Black President Barack Obama. 11) White Southerners do no like or want a Black President. 12) The South is not Progressive …never has been Progressive, and simply remains THE Bed Rock of Embedded Racism. 13) Best Place to keep Niggers in their Place. 14) The South wants their Love Affair with Racism to continue UNIMPEDED by things like Fairness and Equality. 15) Did I Mention White Southerners do no like or want a Black President? 16)All of the Above.

THE Southern Slogan and Political Motto…RACISM TODAY—RACISM TOMORROW—RACISM FOREVER.